Installers of carpeting and other floor coverings are faced with numerous difficulties relating to installation of the floor coverings in locations where furniture has already been placed. Generally, such floor covering installation has required the installer to move all of the furniture to one side of a room while floor covering is installed in the furniture's original position, and then to move all of the furniture to the other side of the room to complete the installation. In the case of heavy furniture and modular furniture, this can be impractical and difficult. Often, the installer must disassemble such furniture in order to move it, increasing the difficulty and cost of the job.
Some in the art have attempted to use various types of jacks to lift furniture in place in order to avoid moving it. However, such attempts have met with limited success for a number of reasons. For example, they require several workers to operate the jacks at the same time, requiring a large work crew; if the jacks are not operated at the same time, the furniture may be warped or otherwise damaged. Moreover, even with the use of jacks, manual operation is difficult and tiring in the case of very heavy furniture.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an apparatus and method for enabling relatively few workers to lift heavy furniture and modular furniture in place for installing floor covering underneath without damaging the furniture.